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[Editor's note: This is the second of five stories
about the University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll. Yesterday we looked at Texas voters and the
2012 presidential contest. Tomorrow, the races for U.S. Senate
and lieutenant governor.]

A key part of Gov. Rick
Perry's pitch to Republican presidential primary voters is
the performance of the state's economy — especially in job
creation — during his tenure as governor. But Texas voters, for
the most part, are more likely to see him as a bystander to the
state's success than its driver, according to the new University
of Texas/Texas Tribune poll.

Asked about the factors behind the state economy's relative
strength, 65 percent of those responding attributed it to
long-standing advantages such as the state's wealth of natural
resources, its balanced budget, the absence of a state personal
income tax and a lenient regulatory environment. Another 21
percent cited Perry's leadership in promoting lower taxes,
lenient regulation and small government as the main reason the
Texas economy has fared better than the national economy.

"They're not crediting him, but I find that unsurprising," said
Daron Shaw, co-director of the poll and a government professor at
UT. "Voters are rational gods of vengeance, but it's not clear to
me how much they're rational gods of reward. They'll kill
you if things go wrong — they may give you some credit if things
go right."

"He might do well in contrast with Obama, but that's not the
contrast right now," Shaw said. "The contrast is with [other]
Republicans."

The poll results appear to show Texas voters don't
buy Perry's claim that his policies are responsible for the
state's economy and that he can do the same for the country. The
findings, however, buttress his claim that protecting those state
policies against efforts to raise taxes and increase regulation
helped the state weather the recession.

In the poll, men were more likely than women to give Perry credit
for the state's economic performance, and rural voters were more
likely than their suburban or urban counterparts to credit Perry.

Perry is in a statistical tie with former business executive
Herman Cain, and there is some indication that fiscal
conservatives among Texas Republicans favor the newcomer. Among
voters who identify themselves with the Tea Party, Cain outdid
Perry 45 percent to 13 percent in the poll; those who chose the
Republican label over the Tea Party label favored Perry 44
percent to 16 percent.

Asked whether a series of descriptive words and phrases could be
used to describe Perry, the respondents were most likely to agree
with "career politician," "conservative" and "a real Texan." They
agreed least with the description of the governor as an
"outsider" and they straddled descriptions like "honest,"
"corrupt," "strong leader," "competent" and "straight talker."

"The thing that really sticks out to me is the degree to which
the governor is seen as a career politician," said Jim Henson,
who teaches government at UT, runs the Texas Politics Project
there and co-directs the UT/Tribune poll. "He very effectively
de-emphasized the career-politician part of his profile in the
2010 race with Kay Bailey Hutchison by negatively portraying her
association with national government. He can't do that in a race
where he's running for national office."

"The political class is not held in very high esteem by the
voters, and the governor was not held accountable for that in the
last election," Henson said.

Respondents were asked to set aside their own views of Perry's
candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination and to judge
whether his campaign has had an effect on the state's image with
voters outside of Texas. One in five (19 percent) said it has
helped the state's image, 37 percent said it has hurt, and 34
percent said the campaign has had no effect on the state's image.

Most registered voters have Perry pegged as a conservative, with
30 percent saying he's "extremely conservative," 33 percent
saying he's "somewhat conservative" and 10 percent marking him as
"slightly conservative." Another 10 percent said the governor is
"moderate, middle of the road." A small number — 7 percent
— said he's "slightly" to "extremely" liberal.

The latest UT/Tribune internet survey of 800 registered voters
was conducted October 19-26. The margin of error is +/-3.46
percent. On questions of Republican voters, the MOE is +/- 4.93
percent; on questions asked only of Democratic voters, the MOE is
6.39 percent.